Back to the Futuro

This is what an abortive dream looks like: barren, bleak, ghostly and surreal. Like the shattered tapestries of glass that hang from many of the window frames, these derelict prefabricated homes are full of wasted potential and squandered hope. But while these desolate structures may seem nightmarish, their science fiction aesthetics reflect the utopian imaginings of a postmodern bygone era.

These, in particular, were formerly vacation houses in a once-operational Taiwanese seaside holiday resort. Now, however, they look more like a last resort for degenerative zombies. The unusual idiosyncratic pods lie silently in motionless limbo on a bay overlooking the waters of the East China Sea, and the subtropical location seems to have played a key part in their demise. Although they are beset with rotted aspirations, they were conceptualized during a flourishing period of optimism – the 60’s and 70’s.

Born in post-war Finland, the oval-shaped structures were a product of a booming experimental era when new trends and lifestyle perspectives were emerging like never before. Spurred on by a renewed faith in technology, unprecedented economic growth and an increase in leisure time, the Finnish architect Matti Suuronen conceived them as versatile housing units. They were made to adaptably serve many functions and designed to be easily transported, assembled and taken down as required.

Suuronen built the first prototype in 1968 and named it Futuro. Grounded in mathematical theory, the spheroid structures feature an ellipsoid fiberglass and reinforced plastic shell, with oval-shaped windows, door handles, light fittings and even elliptic-shaped power sockets. He also designed some box-shaped Venturo houses that followed the same prefabricated concept.

The unique UFO form of the Futuro houses fascinated many and they were to be licensed and mass-produced in 50 countries. They were a popular hit with the growing leisure class who could also adapt the modular structures to be ski cabins, bungalows, hunting and fishing lodges, gas stations, and more. However, only 100 made it through production as an oil crisis struck in the beginning of the 70’s, which culminated in petroleum shortages and elevated prices around the world. The oil shock made the plastics for these pod structures more expensive and Suuronen’s space-age vision of the future died before it had begun.

Over on the other side of the world, a few years later, an entrepreneurial Taiwanese businessman had audacious ambitions to use some of the same prefabricated pods to develop a seaside resort on the edge of the island. He had made his money with the popular soda Sarsaparilla and wanted to create a coastal holiday spot for the rich in Taiwan. However, although the pods were set up and inhabited for a short period of time, the fate of the flying saucer homes again ended in tragedy. The project was abandoned when the extreme weather and lack of interest scared off investors.

Standing shoulder to shoulder in dereliction, the solitary structures have now been left to rot on their seaside plot in Taiwan. Although this cluster of pods is one of the few remaining examples of this type of modernist modular architecture, it looks like they have been condemned to decay for good. Neglected by the world, the moldering units are destined for oblivion, like discarded irreparable spaceships on an apocalyptic alien crash site.

Ravaged by time, the atrophied abandonment is just about all that is left of this futuristic vision of housing. Although Norwegian artist Lars Ramberg has described these prefabricated homes as “ageing carcasses of failed modernism,” these structural skeletons appear to prove him wrong, as they have given rise to a subculture of aficionados and appear contemporary even by today’s standards. Perhaps these surreal UFO units were just ahead of their time, and time alone will tell what’s to become of these postmodern ruins.